I Feel Empty, Is There Any Redemption in Amy Schumer’s Controversial Comedy? [Review]

Amy Schumer’s, I Feel Pretty is the perfect movie for a girl’s night out… wait I’m sorry I read my notes wrong I meant to say it’s perfect for a prelude to a suicide pact. A lot of the “positive” reviews have that it’s “a girl’s night out” movies and just wow, what kind of low opinion must you have to assume that the perfect movie for female audiences would be something this vapid and condescending. For some reason I have this weird inclination that like a girl’s night out movie would be like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them If you’re a girl let me know what the “Perfect Girl’s Night Out” movie is, I’d like to know I’m curious now.

Appearance/Production

Back to this complete and utter Train wreck ( Ba Dum Tsss), It takes about 4 seconds before you realize you’ve met with a terrible fate and that this is going to be far worse than you would have expected it. I thought I Feel Pretty would be an out of touch comedy with Adam Sandler level of mediocre production but that somehow was too high of expectations. I Feel Pretty had absolutely no business being released in theatres as it is about at a college level production and that’s an insult to film students. The color grading is abhorrent; it’s very noticeable that their camera couldn’t handle the high exposures (why you never see a blue sky in this film) compounded with that everyone is wearing the flashiest colors in their wardrobe and the settings are pure white for the most part so the editors didn’t have much to work with.

Keeping in mind that the trailer is edited from a different company than the final edit from memory some of the film looks as dull and brightness down as this does but other times it looks unnatural and oversaturated.

As for editing in general, it might just be the dullest edited movie I’ve seen. Honestly, a more appropriate title for this movie would have been Paycheck because it just reeks of no one even caring a little and going beyond just the bare minimum to complete the film. There is so many long takes and wide angles with shot composition almost 75% just shot-reverse shot so that they could be a lazy as possible and not have to do more takes at different angles. None of the tracking shots are impressive in the slightest and you feel that they’re just there to pad the runtime instead of actually give us the sense of the environment.

Performances

In terms of performances… everyone sucks no redeemable acting, I actually felt so deprived of any actual performance that I started looking at the extras in the out of focus background and realized that they were probably doing a better job. People are extremely biased, and I hate to say this because I think she’s a phenomenal actress and I applaud the commitment but by god is Michelle Williams horrible in this. I’m actually impressed that they were able to direct Michelle Williams in a way that she was this bad. People want to say that she was great in this movie because it’s against what we expect, and she fully commits but come on I know It’s the material, but it felt ripped straight out from a Disney Channel show. Amy Schumer was awful and makes no effort to make me laugh or sympathize with her character so I’m not going to take any effort in explaining why she’s a terrible character beyond that. Before you call me out for trollin’ and being rude for holding the subjective opinion that a female comedian was not funny; go watch Iliza Schlesinger’s stand-up on Netflix I enjoyed her routines and I don’t think enough people have checked out her stuff.

The Story

It’s just the “handsome Squidward” episode. It’s not the best episode of SpongeBob ever, but it does a better job than this movie. What makes the “handsome Squidward” episode funny is it’s play on Melodramatics most of the jokes come from the suspense of a doctor that’s going to remove the bandages from Squidward’s face and the ways the tension keeps getting undercut. The episode actually is more surrounded the crazed fan-fair that happens to the character after he became conventionally attractive. The fact that this character’s sudden transformation can make the blind see, the disabled walk, and even have one guy suddenly be able to fly. In this movie despite Amy Schumer acting like a complete lunatic everyone in the room looks at her as if she just filled the room with a fart. Maybe this film would have worked if it was similar to the obscure Bill Murray film What About Bob? Murray acts as a deranged hypochondriac that follows his psychiatrist around and bothers him to the point where the psychiatrist will go to any length to get rid of him. Say one of Amy Schumer’s friends (Instead of acting like bland cardboard all movie) was not letting her live in this delusional state, shake her up and yell “YOU ARE A TOY!”. Someone who’s just a realist and says it’s the harsh truth of society but life’s not fair just accept it but eventually finds Amy Schumer’s positivity infectious and when Amy Schumer falls down the stairs and realizes she can’t fly… I mean Isn’t “pretty” we can see her darkest moment of the soul moment where she agrees with her friend’s pessimism. Then they both reconvene in the final act and realize some compromise like “We can’t change who we are, and we can’t pretend to be something we’re not but we really shouldn’t let those things bother us as much or consume us. I’ve been a bad friend and should really be building my friend up instead of trying to knock them down”. Because if we did something along the lines of that we would have something along the lines of “conflict-resolution” you know those old nitpicks. Which this film extremely lacks. I feel like saying you need to do something so basic in plot and making the plot external instead of internal sounds like dumb advice but It’s better than the nothing plot progression we got. Amy Schumer just recognizes in the end that she looked the same and then spews positive affirmations “everyone can be beautiful”, “You might not like it but this is what peak woman looks like” “blah, blah, blah”. To wrap up what I started this section with, “Handsome Squidward” is funny because he is such a caricature, maybe it would have been fun to have spliced edits of some typical blonde model like Kate Upton so we can see what the idea looks like, so when we see Amy Schumer replicating those actions we see the disconnect with reality. I hate trying to simplify this movie with cheap tricks but it works, Usually it’s no trust your audience’s imagination but as Mr. Clean proves that a dramatic reveal can be played for a comedic moment.

How Bad Is It?

It’s up there, or down there? What? Point is, I Feel Pretty is horrible! Not to the extend where I would refuse to even call it a movie but one that is grossly incompetent in all aspects that I don’t see a redeeming quality in it. McG produced it so… it’s about on par with the Babysitter maybe a tad bit worse. Feel free to sound off in the comments what you thought of I Feel Pretty and whether I’m being rude or completely justified with how harsh this review came across and please share your own opinion on the film. Thanks, folks have a wonderful day, and I’ll see you at the movies.